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I was in a discussion yesterday about millionaires versus billionaires.
My wife was surprised there are only 900 billionaires in the United States — she thought it would be a lot more. Just 900 people doesn’t seem like a big number.
But she was also surprised by the estimated number of millionaires in the U.S., which she thought was high. It’s estimated to be about 24.5 million.
So I asked her how long is one million seconds versus one billion seconds — and of course, the answer totally shocked her.
One million seconds = 11 days, 13 hours, 46 minutes.
One billion seconds = 31.7 years!!!!!!
Yeah, the difference is years, decades even, compared to days. It’s hard to wrap your noodle around.
I’ve thrown this stat out before (I love to bore people with it!), but it’s worth trying to keep in mind when you look at Apple’s truly astonishing numbers.
Just look at the latest earnings release, which shed light on the number of iPhones, Macs and iPads sold over the last three months — and the truly enormous sums of money those sales generated, which, once again, broke records.
Apple raked in $143.8 billion in the last three months, which in seconds would be 4,500 years — subtract that from today’s date and you’ll be somewhere in the middle of the Bronze Age! Mind-boggling.
Also in today’s newsletter:
We were looking forward to new M5 MacBooks this week, but alas, they did not show. This might be the reason for the delay.
Protect your privacy with Incogni — an automated tool that scrubs your personal data from the internet, reducing your exposure to spammers and scammers. It’s well-reviewed and highly effective — and we have an exclusive 55% discount with code CULTOFMAC.
As Apple works to transform our devices into smart AI agents, one word keeps popping up — privacy, privacy, privacy. I, for one, am grateful that Apple’s making this a top priority.
On this week’s podcast, it’s all about the new AirTag. (Well, almost.) Watch or listen — and don’t forget to subscribe and give us a big fat five-star review if you like it!
Old iPhone photos, scanned prints and other low-resolution images often look grainy and/or blurry on today’s large, high-resolution displays. Aiarty Image Enhancer is designed to solve exactly those problems, quickly and easily.
I’ve got high blood pressure and have been taking daily medicine to manage it, yet I’ve not gotten a hypertension alert from my Apple Watch. I’m not the only one. Is this marquee new feature actually working? How about you? We’d love to hear from you. Take today’s poll below.
And LOL lots of people chose the wrong answer on yesterday’s poll — except about 20 people, congrats to them! (The correct answer is iPhone 16.)
— Leander Kahney, EIC.
A message from Incogi
Unknown number calling? It’s not random …
The BBC caught scam call-center workers on hidden cameras as they laughed at the people they were tricking.
One worker bragged about making $250K from victims. The disturbing truth?
Scammers don’t pick phone numbers at random. They buy your data from brokers.
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A message from Aiarty
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Cult of Mac’s buyback program
Tweets of the day
Wallpaper of the day
One more thing ...
I'm just a guy who probably should have been a semi-talented poet on the Left Bank. I sort of got sidetracked here.
Today’s poll
Have you gotten a hypertension alert from your Apple Watch?
Results from yesterday’s poll: No cheating: Guess the top-selling phone of 2025?
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